Music like Aaron Krause

El poeta is a Spanish opera composed by Federico Moreno Torroba. It premiered at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, Spain on June 19, 1980, starring Plácido Domingo, Ángeles Gulín, and Carmen Bustamante. The idea of a new opera had originally been suggested to Moreno Torroba by Domingo. El poeta would be the 89-year-old composer's last major work for the stage.

Federico Moreno Torroba was one of the most prolific composers of Spanish zarzuelas and modern classical guitar music, but had only worked on operas early in his career. In 1946, he formed a traveling zarzuela company with baritone Plácido Domingo Ferrer and his wife Pepita Embil. Decades later, he was contacted by their son about a possible operatic collaboration. Moreno Torroba recalled in 1980: "Three years ago, in Bilbao, I met our great tenor Plácido Domingo, whom I had not seen since he was three years old. I was great friends with his parents, Pepita Embil and Plácido Domingo, Sr., and our great singer suggested that I write an opera." Domingo encouraged the composer to write an opera about Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Moreno Torroba, however, felt that the life of nineteenth-century poet José de Espronceda would be a better operatic topic. They both agreed that José Méndez Herrera, whom Moreno Torroba praised for his "magnificent poetic spirit," should write the libretto.